Sonar 8.5 - Cakewalk Takes a Breather

For the past 7 years every Fall like clockwork Cakewalk has released a new version of Sonar, more frequently than any other DAW manufacturer. So I suspect it’s either the economy or that even the Sonar faithful are becoming a little burned out on new releases (or probably a little of both) that prompted a different strategy this year — Sonar 8.5. Unlike some manufacturers normally Cakewalk only does bug fixes in “point” releases and doesn’t charge for them. The upgrade to Sonar 8.5 costs $99 and has a surprisingly generous amount of new content. In response we decided to issue a free course upgrade for our Sonar 8 customers instead of doing a new course. Here’s my take on the new features in Sonar 8.5. If you’re a first-time Sonar customer, you may also want to take a look at my blog on Sonar 8. (more…)